COBALT proposes the introduction of a Common Certification Model (CCM) for European industries, leveraging existing standards and composing a unified cybersecurity namespace for ICT processes. The proposal will uphold the paradigm of Digital Twinning (DT) via the creation of Digital Threads and extend it in a vertical agnostic approach across different industries, including Quantum computing (involving FHG’s Quantum Computer) and I4.0. The COBALT DT will explore technology disruption mainly focusing on AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) via the analysis and certification of Quantum Processing Oracles (a Quantum Computer exposure operation that is used as input to another algorithm), and how different enablers of these paradigms can be certified in a vertical agnostic manner. Quantum is destined to play a pivotal role in Europe’s AI and Computing sovereignty, thus protecting such infrastructure and its relevant processes (Quantum Oracles), should be of top priority. Along with common information models, COBALT acknowledges the importance of trusted information exchange a critical feature for an effective certification process across different industries, especially regarding cybersecurity. Therefore, COBALT will focus on the integration of International Data Spaces (IDS) primitives as a basis for the data sharing platform across different stakeholders. IDS currently proposes different models and procedures to share information and data across different spaces in a trusted manner between two parties, this can facilitate the process to build a trusted end-to-end certification framework across different industry stakeholders. Finally, COBALT aims to build a decentralized solution to further accelerate technology adoption and harmonization for the different use cases to be adopted. For the proposed CCM to function as a long term and sustainable European solution for certification, it needs to adapt and flex according to different environment conditions.

The aim of CARIM is the final development, homologation and commercialization of a full carbon automotive wheel manufactured in an automated, high-volume production process. Within the 2-year project the TRL level, currently 6+, will be raised to 8+ or 9. Developments in automated CFRP production technology will generate a wheel that is 30-50% lighter than state-of-the-art Al-wheels, with the extra advantage of excellent mechanical performance. The manufacture of the wheels in an automated preforming and HP-RTM process will ensure short cycle times (max. 10 min/component) and lower costs (1634€/wheel in first year of production and 1164€ in 2020) that will enable scale-up to series production and make the CARIM wheels competitive against current casted and forged Al-wheels and other emerging plastic wheel concepts. A testing and validation phase for the demonstrators covers a comprehensive product homologation to meet TUV regulations and the requirements of OEMs and material suppliers. The market entry of the product is clearly detailed in the proposal’s business plan which predicts a commercially-available product within one year after the project ends. The strategy for implementing the carbon wheel on the market is a top-down approach starting with a low production volume for high class cars and a steady rise in carbon wheel production. The five-year goal is a production capability - only at RiBa - of 52.000 wheels per year by 2020. The technology also has the potential for transfer into higher-volume car segments in luxury/medium-class vehicles, as well as to helicopter and aviation applications. The industry-driven consortium is supported by strong partners integrated in an Industrial Exploitation Board (Bentley, Huntsman) providing technical and economic consulting and know-how. The project results will be systematically disseminated and exploited to maximize visibility, industrial take-up and the transfer of the developments to new markets.